Mr. Bowles

Pounce texted me earlier this week that Mr. Bowles had passed away.  As most would be, I was immediately sad.  My emotion, however, was due to aberrant reasons.

You see, Mr. Bowles was one of the good guys.  A "good ol' boy" as David would say.  He is exactly what I miss about small town Oklahoma.  He was my science teacher in high school for 2 years but he was also a farm and church man.  He was the perfect example of a hard working Christian man that I would have loved to have taught my boys.

This is where the aberrant part comes in.  

I know Mr. Bowles is in Heaven.  I have no doubt of that.  There is no way a good man like that wouldn't be there.  So my sadness has nothing to do with his death.  His death has just made me sad to think of the simple life that my boys are missing out on.

With all our moves, my boys have experienced much and in a lot of ways, I truly feel it has benefited them because of all they have been exposed to.  It has bonded our little family closer than most, in my opinion, because we have to lean on each other.  We can't run to extended family members.  We have had to build a strong family relationship with each other because we know that Heavenly Father's plan and our little family is the only stable thing in our lives.

I can remember coming home for Amanda's wedding.  Levi was 4, Brigham was almost 3, and I was hugely pregnant with Hyrum.  We were at church and they were climbing all around me and both trying to get on my lap (David was in Utah).  I was in the same pew as my mom, grandparents, April, and her kids.  I just happened to look over and see my mom and grandmother's face, well, kinda dumbfounded.  Finally my mom took the boys and told them to leave me alone.  It took me a second but I realized that wasn't "normal."  I wasn't used to a lot of help (except from David) and so really, David and the boys were my world.  They had to be.  I love this about all our moves.

However, I can't help but envy my sister, April.  She and her family have never left Jay, Oklahoma.  Her children may not have made as many friends or been to as many entertaining places as my children have, because of a lack of things to do in Jay, but they have stability.  They know what time Daddy will come home every night.  They know how to find things to do in little Jay, Oklahoma.  They know that worldly things aren't that important, not only to themselves, but also to those around them.  People in Jay, Oklahoma could never be accused of "keeping up with the Jones" and I love that.  There is something to be said about leading a simple life.

I guess what I am saying is that I know both April's path, as well as mine, is good.  Real good.  We are both raising good children.  I guess I just wonder sometimes about choices.

So, I write this journal entry to remind myself that there is good in so many of our life choices...and I also wanted to remember this good man.

My favorite memories:

*Mr. Bowles was a teaser.  But he did it with an infectious smile.  I seriously don't know how anyone could not like this man.  The only time I ever saw irritation in him is when we would take things to far and even then that didn't last long.  He used to always tease me about a certain boy.  I can hear his giggle now....

*He had this mounted deer head that he would bring to school every Christmas and stick a red light bulb where its nose should be and tell us that he killed Rudolf.

*He told us that if we waited until marriage to have sex and took a mason jar and filled it with jelly beans everytime we had sex whithin that first year of marriage, that we would never be able to empty that jar if we started taking one out everytime we had sex after that first year of marriage.   I still love telling people about that because I think there is some truth to that!

*But my all time favorite memory of this man is his live birth video.  He had us watch one once and then rewound it (in a slower motion so that we could still see what was going on).  We watched as this baby went right back up in the mom and then he said something about that being birth control for us all!  See...a good man!  Not afraid to teach (preach) about staying away from pre-marital sex.

All these experiences in his class made me WANT to learn because he made it fun and inviting.  I can only hope that with all the teachers that my children have had, that at least one will have as much impact on their lives as Mr. Bowles did on mine.
 (top: Laura, Alisa, Angie  bottom:  Mr. Bowles, Niki)